Sarah had come over to his apartment and stood in his doorway looking beautiful. Robert thought that the doorway probably felt very lucky to have someone so beautiful standing in it. She had looked Robert in the eye with barely any emotion and told him point-blank, “Robert, I’m leaving you.” Her voice was silken smooth and had the ability to make penguins melt.
“What?” asked Robert from his recliner. Robert’s voice made penguins tilt their heads in a questioning motion.
“I’m leaving you, Robert. I have to, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry,” she said.
“But why?” asked Robert and dropped his potato chips.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. It’s just something that has to be done. I’m sure one day it’ll make sense to both of us.” And with that, she walked out of his life.
Stupidly annoying nonsensical things like this had happened to Robert all his life. At the age of ten, they had irritated him but now he was thirty-three it just seemed common. When he turned five, every single toy in his room had vanished. His adoptive parents were furious but at the same time couldn’t figure out how a five-year-old could make all those toys disappear. Robert didn’t know either, he’d just woken up and they were gone.
When he was thirteen, an overdeveloped twelve-year-old girl had bullied Robert to the point where he was on the edge of insanity. One day while bullying him, for no reason at all, her hair fell out. Robert had been accused of shaving her head and promptly punished. At sixteen, he had passed his graduating math exam with flying colours. Later that same day, he was expelled for no apparent reason. At the ages of three, seven, twelve, eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-six, and thirty-one, he had fallen asleep only to wake up somewhere else entirely. One time he woke up and found he was locked in the Tower of London. Another time he woke up at Stonehenge. And another time he’d woken up in his elementary school teacher’s flower garden. While attending university in Manchester he had maintained a three-hour conversation with a friendly German Shepherd who had told him why dogs sniffed each other’s rear ends. None of it made sense. And what had worried Robert the most was that it never scared him, never seemed strange to him, and worst of all it had since stopped concerning him to the point where he just accepted it.
Robert hailed a cab and finally got out of the rain. After spending thirty minutes in the hell that was London traffic he entered the front door of his apartment building and squelched his way up the ancient staircase, leaving sopping wet footprints as he went.
“Darkly!” screeched Gertrude, whose voice sounded like a nasally version of nails on a chalkboard. Gertrude stood at the top of the stairs wearing a flowery nightgown over faded jeans. The rollers in her hair looked like they could be removed only by utilizing some serious power tools. “Look what you’re doing to my floors with your dampness, why you’re dripping wet, what are you dripping wet for, Darkly?”
“Hello, Gertrude. Sorry about that. Having a bad day.”
“You think you’re having a bad day? The damn TV service isn’t working, I’ve missed three shows already this morning. And now I find you making a mess in my hallway.”
“Sorry, Gertrude. I just want to get upstairs. It’s been a really bad day.”
“I hope you know the rent is due tomorrow, Darkly? You were two days late last month. You should borrow some money from that lady friend of yours if you’re coming up short. Nice girl, that, very pretty. Not sure what she wants with the likes of you but there you go.”
The sound of a game show drifted from Gertrude’s open door.
“Oh, the telly’s back on!” she exclaimed and shuffled back into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Robert had never put much stock in game shows but today he thanked his lucky stars that at the very least, one thing had gone right today. He continued upstairs and unlocked his door.
He checked for messages on the answering machine and discovered that exactly what he expected was true. No one wanted to talk to him. He walked into his once white bathroom, which over time had started turning a funny yellow color, and turned on his bath. He turned the taps to get the temperature just right and stuck in the plug. He took off his soggy clothes and dumped them in his laundry basket. He wandered, naked, into his kitchen and turned on the kettle. There’s nothing like a good cup of tea after a hot bath. He looked through a stack of smutty literature sitting on his coffee table and finally selected one of Sarah’s old celebrity gossip magazines. He heard a sploosh somewhere close by and figured he must have water in his ears from all the rain.
He looked at the cover of the magazine to see a couple of pretty actors had just adopted their seventh child from a poor country, making them the nicest people alive. He pushed open the bathroom door and then a variety of things happened which would change Robert’s life forever.
First of all, there was a fully clothed Dwarf holding a large knife sitting in the over-flowing bathtub. Secondly, Robert realized he himself was naked. And thirdly, the Dwarf was looking at him with a pair of the darkest eyes he’d ever seen. Chills ran laps up and down his spine.
“You must be Robert Darkly,” said the Dwarf.
Robert promptly screamed like a girl and slammed the bathroom door.
Chapter Two
10 Minutes Ago…
Rumpelstiltskin cackled incessantly as he ran along the riverbank putting further miles between himself and the Tower. He couldn’t help himself. Sixty years to the day he’d been trapped in the Tower, and finally he was free. Free to do exactly what he wanted. Free to trick and cheat and cause trouble. And more importantly, he could finish what he started. Getting out of the Tower was the easy part; the deal he’d struck with the Mad Hatter guaranteed he’d get past the lake guards and through any doorway to Othaside. All he had to do was find one. He remembered it being easier; he remembered doors being everywhere. That was sixty years ago and a lot of things can change in sixty years.
The Dwarf stopped and looked over at the edge of the river. In the water’s reflection, he could see clearly that he’d aged in those years. He counted the wrinkles around his eyes and could see that there was definitely one more than was present sixty years ago. Dwarves in Thiside aged at a literal snail’s pace.
Rumpelstiltskin was a typical Dwarf, standing a little under four feet tall with a crooked oversized Goblin-like nose, small, black, beady eyes, and scruffy grey hair. He still wore the rags that he wore in the Tower and a peaked hat that drooped down his back.
He pulled the knife out of his belt and watched as the rising sun reflected off the metal. The boy who was fishing never heard Rumpelstiltskin, never saw the evil little man sneak up behind him, and was completely ignorant about what the hell was going on when the Dwarf strangled the boy with his own fishing line. He just wanted the boy’s knife.
Rumpelstiltskin snickered. He had a plan and it was about damn time he put it into action. He had to deliver the message he promised and fulfil his end of the deal with the Hatter. Then he had other things to do, other people to find. All he had to do was find a door and, in line with the terms of his deal, it would take him exactly where he needed to be.
The little Dwarf danced in a circle, gleeful at his own maniacal brilliance. Order and peace had been kept for so long in Thiside and Othaside and it was about time that order was upset. Those damn do-gooders were going to pay for locking him up. The Hatter could do whatever he wanted but Rumpelstiltskin had his own agenda, and as much as he wanted to revel in his freedom, he had to get moving.